Friday, September 17, 2010

Yogi's and Mayonaise as the Ultimate Condiment

On Thursday evening Rosa, my host and I set out for the local market. Eunice her youngest daughter (age 6) went with us. We met up with her son Penuel (9) at the market. He was eating Peruvian "Cheesy Poofs." Penuel likes to share so he gave me some. My host mom said "Lisa, let's go to the market and walk around so you can get to know Ayacucho." So off we went. We bought a towel for me in the market. A blue one, my favorite color. We also waled through the different stalls, as this is an open air market, and I saw piles on piles of potatoes. All different varieties. Of course white and yellow, but also purple, and red, and even a sweet variety that had tiger stripes.
After the market we extended our walk. While we were in the mercado (market) Penuel asked me if I liked hotdogs as we passed the salchicha counter. I said "yeah they're okay, do you like them?" He told me that he did, and that there is a snack here called a YOGI. It is basically like a corn dogexcept it is baked in a mold that looks like a waffle iron. Then it gets topped with your choice of cremas or sauces. I went for broke and said give me all of them...mayo, mustard, ketchup, avacado, I passed on the olive sauce (they grow olives in Ica, Peru and eat a lot of them).
After walking around a little more my family took me out for pizza. Eating again!? Pizza is Pizza. They go light on the sauce and heavy on the queso here. The kids and apparently most of Peru likes Hawaiian pizza which is ham and pineapples. My family goes further and gets the Hawaiian number two which adds olives and peaches to the tropical mix.
As the waitress prepared our table she set down a small dish of aji which is chili spread and one with white cream in it. "Que es esto?" What is this I asked? Penuel said "It is mayonaise, we put it on our pizza." When the pizza came he and Eunice spread it all over their pizza. I held out. No mayo for me thanks. I guess I should think it was wierd, but I remember 8th graders in Clinton, SC in 2000 smearing ranch dressing all over their pizza.
Ooooh! I wonder what is for breakfast?

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